TLS Books signs ‘urgent and timely’ polemic on lawfare by Robertson

TLS Books has acquired an “urgent and timely” assessment of the failings of the British legal system by barrister Geoffrey Robertson KC. 

Publishing director Myles Archibald acquired world all language rights to Lawfare directly from the author. It will be published in hardback, e-book and audiobook on 19th January.

Its synopsis reads: “The British tradition of ‘free speech’ is a myth. From the middle ages to the present, the law of defamation has worked to cover up misbehaviour by the rich and powerful, whose legal mercenaries intimidate investigative journalists. Now a new terror has been added through misguided judicial development of the laws of privacy, breach of confidence and data protection, to suppress the reporting of truths of public importance to tell.

“Drawing upon Geoffrey Robertson’s unparalleled experience of defending journalists and editors over the past half-century, the book describes the hidden world of lawfare, in which authors struggle against unfair rules and against a cost burden that runs to millions. Law schools do not teach freedom of speech and judges in the Supreme Court do not understand it. This book identifies and advocates the reforms that will be necessary before Britain can truly boast that it is a land of free speech.”

Archibald said: “Freedom of speech is becoming ever more important and ever more threatened. I can think of no better subject than Lawfare at this point in the discussion, and no better person to write it.”

Martin Ivens, editor of the TLS, said: “Geoffrey Robertson has long argued that in Britain we do not have free speech: we have expensive speech. His case for reforming our arcane libel laws should be required reading for journalists and every active and informed citizen.”

Robertson added: “The intimidation of writers and publishers by the wealthy has become intolerable. Britain is not a land of free speech but of expensive speech and sometimes, thanks to threats of legal action, of no speech at all. It is time to demolish the myth that our law favours freedom of expression, and to make some simple changes so that it does.”

Robertson is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers, Europe’s largest human rights practice. He has been counsel in many trials, representing the editors of the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal among others, to the likes of Salman Rushdie and Julian Assange.

He is author, with Justice Andrew Nicol, of the textbook Media Law. His autobiography Rather His Own Man (Biteback Publishing) was published in 2018. He has received the New York Bar Association award for distinction in International Law, and the Order of Australia, for his defence of free speech around the world, and is a Master of the Middle Temple and a trustee of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. In 2022 he was sanctioned by the Kremlin.